Only for her
by Jason Layton
Summary: University fic. When a young undergraduate is killed, Sherlock Holmes can't help himself, he must investigate. As the story becomes murkier, the killer comes closer to home.
1. Boxing

**His first punch sent the larger boy flying across the canvas. As much as she liked to pretend she didn't care, that this didn't bother her, that she was unaffected, her head snapped away at the sound of that first connection. A scream guttural and animalistic rose from the crowd, she felt her response the lurch of her stomach, her heart thumping, the wave of adrenaline and nausea. She was surrounded by the hot sweaty excited crowd but she was utterly alone, she had no friends here apart from the wiry boy standing over his prone opponent. Even he would leave without her, unless he left this place carried bloody and unconscious like the last time. **

**The boy on the floor was immune to the sound of the crowd, he was raising himself from bloody filthy material shaking his head to clear his vision, confident in the knowledge that everyone else in this place was cheering for him. She watched him though, he wasn't looking towards his opponent who had knocked him over, or the crowd that was chanting his name, his eyes were searching. She watched as they rested on a girl in the far corner of the room beside the door. Tall and brunette, she was wearing a short skirt, high heels, a tiny tight shirt and long hoop earrings. She was completely out of place in this room, and it was no wonder the boy's eyes had found her easily. Looking between them though it was obvious the brunette wasn't watching the fight, or the boy who searched for her, her eyes were drawn to the group of professor's surreptitiously placing bets on the two boxers. A slight smile played on the brunettes face as she ran her hand across her body, provocatively she wondered. **

**Another crack filled the room, followed by a cheer as the larger boy got a good punch in and she forgot the brunette as her mind filled with the horror of the fight again. Despite herself she had to watch with grim fascination, till the fight was finally stopped by the referee and the boys shook hands. When she spun around to look for the Brunette, but the mini-skirted girl was gone, as were the professors. **


	2. Waking

**The sound of the phone bleeping was what woke Sherlock Holmes, and for a few moments he couldn't quite remember where he was. His body sore in familiar places, he groaned as he moved, attempting to reach for his Nokia, at the same time as ensuring he was, against the obvious pain in his body, sleeping alone. He opened one eye, and realised he was in a familiar bedroom, although not his own, he relaxed into the pain and put the phone to his face, reading the text.**

_"Intrstng find Fen Causeway, r up yr st."_

**He smiled and felt the crack as his bloody and bruised face protested. Sliding from under the sheets he realised she had undressed him, wondering briefly how stoned he'd been he looked to the dressing table where she'd laid out clean clothes for him. **

**The girl was a wonder, how someone so considerate and kind, had become embroiled with him was a mystery. Why she allowed him to use her home like this, to turn up and all hours, and leave again as inconsiderately and still care enough about him to undress him, clean his clothes, tend his wounds, and provide him with whatever he demanded. **

**He dressed quickly and stumbled to the bathroom, splashing water on his face, he scowled at his reflection in the mirror. 19 years old he looked like hell, but there was something in his deep blue eyes, the thrill of the chase.**

**"Sherlock?" she called from the hallway, "are you OK? Do you need anything?" Her voice filled with concern, he smiled again.**

**"Fine" he croaked, coughing the taste of foul tobacco from his throat, "what time is it?"**

**"About 7.30" she called, her voice sleepy, she'd had less than 4 hours sleep "are you going out?"**

**"Yep, want to come?" he asked opening the bathroom door wide, and looking down at her.**

**"Always" she smiled gesturing at her fully clothed body.**


	3. The scene

**It was a chilly foggy morning in Cambridge, and as they walked together through Mill Road Cemetery, dog walkers passed them like ghosts in the mist. It was still dark and she walked closer to him than either of them was really comfortable with, but it was cold and there was a prickle of fear running down her back, so they walked as close as lovers through the November mist. **

**When they got to The Fen Causeway, they emerged from the playing fields behind The Ley's School and saw the police vans lined up along the Causeway.**

**"Look at that Lu" Sherlock murmured, the silent revery in his voice.**

**"The police cars?" she asked**

**"The murder scene" he grinned.**

**Having stood and watched the police close of the area, the forensics come in, CID taking over, and then the private ambulance arrive. Sherlock had a good idea of the scene, as the forensics started the long labourious job of bagging every piece of rubbish, every scrap of loose material, every muddy footprint, he could have described it perfectly for them. His concentration was broken when beside him Lucille waved at the Private Ambulance Drivers, based beside her own home she knew these lads well, and it had seemed natural enough to wave at them. This however set them apart from the other casual observers, and brought them to the notice of the detectives nearby. Sherlock looked between her and the closest detective.**

**"Run" he said to his friend, "they'll get suspicious, run."**

**She looked at him, but he'd already turned and started to run, "Fuck" she thought, and ran after him.**

**Carolyn Seaman was an undergraduate at Kings she'd been found early on Thursday morning by an artist searching for inspiration in the Autumnal mist. Somebody had hit her at least twice in the face with the standard blunt instrument, then strangled her unnecessarily with the cord of her tracksuit top. Her Father was an associate history professor at Sidney Sussex, and had been called to identify his only child at midday on Thursday. Begging the police not to inform his ex-wife, the girls mother, arguing the news was better coming from him.**

**So while Sherlock Holmes and Lucille Steadman watched, and Cambridgeshire police started their investigation, the girls family fell apart.**


	4. The parents

**James L Seaman Associate professor of History at Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, was a man wracked with guilt. Guilt for not being able to protect his only child from the killer that took her life, guilt at blubbing like a child in front of Cambridgeshire's best whilst identifying her, guilt at forgetting to tell his wife and instead recieving her alarmed phone-call whilst driving to London to pick up his ex-wife, guilt at hanging up on her, guilt when he pulled up outside his ex-wife's tiny flat, guilt at the squalid area the woman lived in, his life was guilt, it was bitter, it was tangible and it chilled him to his core.**

**After a bitter silent drive back to Cambridge, where April Seaman refused to speak to her ex-husband, refused to cry, refused to move bar the shallow wheezing breaths that symbolised the difference between herself and her daughter. James Seaman stopped his car in the tiny area laughingly reserved as the Sidney Sussex College Car park. **

**"What are we doing here?" his ex wife aske, nt bothering to hide the nasty bite of her voice.**

**"Press conference" James explained gently "I did say, the police asked us to come straight here."**

**"I don't want to take part in some f'in press conference I want to see Carolyn." She whined, her nasal cockney tones in sharp contrast to his own honeyed accent.**

**"April, please understand" he started**

**"NO!" She hit him flat palmed across the face "You F'in understand you creepy baastard, she was my daughter, mine, I raised her I gave birth to her, I loved her, you were just the f'in sperm donor, and no I won't do what the f'in pigs say I want to see my f'in daughter and you and your ponsey college won't stop me."**

**"April" he begged "Please, you don't want to see her, she's not" he tried again**

**"NO! I'm not f'in listening to you, you bastard, I don't have to listen to you, I don't have to hear a word you say, take me to my daughter, take me to my Carol" **

**Her rant was stopped by a young Police Constable who came up to the drivers side of the car, and lightly tapped on the window.**

**"Mr and Mrs Seaman?" he asked and when he received a slight nod from the Professor he continued "DSI Calibrine is waiting for you, if you'd like to follow me."**

**Professor Seaman got out of the car, and walked arund to the passenger side, gently opening the door for his ex-wife. She spat at him, waving two fingers in the air.**

**"Come on April" he gently coaxed "come on we need to help find her killer."**

**"I know who her f'in killer was, it was you, you brought her to this stupid place, and it killed her. I don't care who did the final deed, 'cos as soon as you brought her here she was dead." She screamed "I'm staying right here, I'm gonna wreck you're ponsey car till you take me to Carol."**

**"Mrs Seaman" The PC tried "You need to come inside, they won't let you see Carolyn I'm afraid, and it's not right you sitting out here."**

**"What do you mean they won't let me see my daughter?" She screamed**

**"April, my dear, I'm sorry" James knelt down to face her where she sat, "April, the murderer took Carolyn's face."**


	5. After the press conference

**As they walked away from the press conference, Sherlock pulled Lucille into an empty seminar room, and slammed the door behind them. He took her hand as she tried to flick on the lights, and put the index finger of his other hand to his lips. He stood by the door and listened to the fast footsteps of police and press as they passed the door, when the noise subsided he spun to her.**

**"Did you know her?" he asked "Carolyn Seaman? Did you know her?"**

**Lucille shrugged "Sort of"**

**"Lu?" his voice was low, "I can't work unless I know the facts"**

**"She climbed for Kings, and obviously I know Professor Seaman."**

**"And?" he prompted**

**"She was at the fight last night, against the deaf lad, he was, I think there was something between them?"**

**"Did they leave together?" he asked, walking to the far side of the room, and pushed his head against the hanging white board.**

**"No" he looked at her quirking his eyebrows "by the time the ref stopped the match, she'd gone, I think, I mean I didn't see I was watching you, but I think she left with one of the profs."**

**"Her Father?" **

**"No he wasn't there, erm Magnusson was there he's from Kings, he was with erm Gullard he's ours, Iveson he is too, and Ellinson he's from Wolfson I think."**

**"Which one did she leave with?"**

**"I don't know, I didn't see? Might have been all of them? Maybe it was a gang-bang?"**

**He scoffed, "Do any of them live near The Causeway?"**

**"Not sure, I only recognise them from the boxing, oh and the Gull, I take his class."**

**"Then what was she doing there?"**

**"Jogging" **

**He turned sharply towards her "WHAT?"**

**"Jogging, well running she was doing a run."**

**"How do you know that?" he hissed**

**"She wasn't wearing a tracksuit last night, nowhere near in fact, she was dressed, well like a hooker, but she was strangled with the cord from her University Tracksuit, also she ran for Kings, the DSI just said so."**

**Sherlock walked up to her, grabbed both sides of her head and kissed her forehead "Why didn't the police say she was running? Why didn't they say? Why keep that quiet?"**

**She shrugged "Maybe they haven't thought of it?"**

**"Yes, no, yes maybe" his eyes glazed as he thought about it, "or maybe it's something else?"**

**"Like?"**

**"I simply have no idea?"**


	6. The photographer

Connie Bridges was quietly hyperventilating, after being triumphantly and ingloriously sick all over herself, after running panic stricken passed her own car, run along the main road, and across Parkers Piece, passing innumerable others who could have helped her she had run nearly 2 miles to Parkside police station, to report the body she'd found. Initially the girl behind the desk had scoffed, why didn't she ring in, why didn't she use the mobile in her hand to call 999. However Connie had sobbed, explained she was panicking, eventually got a PC to come with her to the causeway, and showed him the boy she'd discovered underneath. Now several hours later, back inside her own home in Cherry Hinton, she went through the trials of the day in her head and started to panic again.

She walked into the cool dark room at the back of the house, her dark room, black as night the scent of chemicals almost choking her, she let the darkness seep into her, calming her, cooling her blood. She was safe now, she was away from Cambridge, she was away from everything, from death, from the stench. Later on she thought she'd collect the clothes she'd worn today and burn them all. For now though, she would let the coolness soothe her.

In the past this room was always her sanctuary, but more recently it had been her horror, her torment, today she hoped that was over, today she'd hoped to restart her life. Instead, she was back here, smelling of sick and blood. Trying not to cry.


	7. The Dorm Room

**"We could do this at mine you know?" She told him, trying not to scold, "there would be more room."**

**They were both squeezed into Sherlock's tiny Uni room, Lucille sat on the three quarter size bed, her knees drawn up to her chin while Sherlock paced the floor scribbling notes and pinning them to the wall as thoughts occurred to him.**

**"She lived in Dorms didn't she?" he muttered "I need to be as close, your house, it's not close, it's not the same."**

**She looked at her watch, it was nearly 10pm they'd missed dinner, not that he would eat, but she' been here most of the day. "Sherlock it's late, do you want…"**

**"Worried about your reputation , Lu?" he interrupted and when she scoffed he grinned. "I think most of the college thinks we're shagging anyway."**

**"I was more concerned your conquest from last night might return." She teased, too late she saw the crimson flush run below his bruised chin, "Oh Sherlock, I'm sorry."**

**"It's nothing" he snapped, stepping back and studying his wall.**

**"Sherlock, you must stop punishing yourself, you've got to stop doing this."**

**He spun around to face her "What the hell would you know about it? You've never let anyone touch you, how dare you judge me, how dare you judge anyone?"**

**"I'm worried about you, I'm not judging you, I just don't want to see you get hurt."**

**"Oh!" Sherlock stopped scowling, his vision cleared, and his head snapped back towards his wall, "tell me about the father."**


	8. April

**"April, sweetheart" Julia Seaman tried to soothe her husband's ex-wife "Won't you please eat something?"**

**April Seaman snatched the plate of sandwiches she was being offered and threw them on the floor with vehemence "F off Julia, you stuck up bitch, I want nothing from you." She spat "I wouldn't be in your f'in house at all if it wasn't for your bastard of a husband stealing my Carol." She folded her arms, lay back into the chesterfield sofa, and kicked over the coffee table, spilling tea and crockery onto the cream carpet.**

**Julia swallowed hard, she knew she couldn't snap, shouldn't react in the back of her mind she could hear her mother counselling her to let it slide off her like water from ducks back. However as she picked the fragments of her broken tea service from the carpet that was effectively ruined, she thought she could happily murder this foul mouthed woman who was festering in her house. "Would you like to go to your room perhaps, April?" she tried again, "I've put you in the room at the back, I thought it would be quieter…"**

**"No I want Carolyn's room, I want to sleep in my Carol's bed" the other woman interrupted.**

**"Of course, whatever you want" Julia stood up "I'll just go and change the sheets"**

**"NO!" April shrieked like a banshee "You don't touch anything you slut, you bitch, you whore, that's my Carol's room, you leave it be" **

**Julia stepped back as if this woman could spit poison "Ok April" she put a hand out "Whatever you want."**

**"Whatever I want?" with every word spittle formed at the corner of her mouth, "whatever I want? I want my Carol, can you do that Julia, can you get me my daughter back? NO? Then wants the f'in point of you anyway?"**

**"I'll show you up" Julia said quietly hurrying out of the room, away from the foul woman, trying to stop her seeing how hurt she was. The truth being her words cut deep, what was the point of her, why was she here, she didn't have a purpose, she didn't have a life, just an existence. She got to Carolyn's bedroom door, and stepped away to let April enter, but these thoughts burnt through her head, scolding away the good points , leaving darkness, leaving blackness, until she felt she was drowning in vitriol a buzzing in her ears were getting louder and louder.**

**"JULIA?" a sharp voice shouted from downstairs. James was home, he'd gone out earlier in the evening to goodness knew where and now he was back. "JULIA, JULIA, I NEED SOMETHING TO EAT."**


	9. In the dead of night

Connie felt his presence, somewhere in the darkness she knew he was there, and in the deepest part of her heart she couldn't have said whether she was scared or exhilarated. She hunched herself against the cold, walking through the dark building, not bothering, maybe not wanted to search out the light switches in the dark. It was past midnight and she couldn't sleep, so instead she walked through the blackened building, helping herself exorcise a bit more of him from her life. She walked to his room and tried the door, it was locked, of course she knew that, how many times had she walked to that door, tried it and found it locked? She fished down the front of her black jumper and pulled the key out, attached to the chain around her neck as always, as it had been since he'd walked out that day. She'd kept it there cold and unfeeling, like he himself.

She unlocked the door, and slipped inside, it was cooler in here, the radiators were off despite the November chill. She didn't turn the light on, but opened the blind slightly to let in the moonlight. The neat desk, tidied beyond reason, was suddenly lit with the ethereal moonlight picking up his work, his neat hand, his labelling of the in and out trays, now so devoid, devoid because of her.

She sat behind the desk, how many times she wondered had she done that, behind the desk, on the desk, against the desk, his body close to hers, in the moonlight. Did he know she wondered what she'd been through today, what she'd seen, where she'd been. Did he know that the body he drawn to him, licked, tasted struggled against had been through today. Did he hear, in the depth of his soul, the tearing, roaring chasm of her own internals.

There was only one thing she could think to do, grabbing a pile of paper from the printer she started writing to him, she poured out her soul, she told him every thought, every feeling she'd had during the day. She wrote and wrote, feeling the pen become slippery in her hand, feeling the hitch on the paper, and when she'd finished she read it over and smiled to herself. She signed it C, folded it, placed it inside an envelope and locked it in the desk.

What did it matter if he never read it, what did it matter if nobody ever read it, who cares, it was cathartic, she felt better, and whilst writing she has a clear idea of where to go from here, where her pain would take her next. Leaving the room she carefully locked it behind her, and walked back into the shadows.


	10. Hate

**Julia Seaman lay awake beside her husband he gentle snoring filled the silent room, and she shivered with every in drawn breath. Her mind dwelled lightly of Carolyn, on their last conversation, over the phone, jut a quick call to let Julia know her presence wouldn't be required the following morning that she wouldn't be running as usual, that she had other plans. Julia cursed, if only she'd run Carolyn's normal route, instead of taking the opportunity to run in a completely different direction she may have been there to stop the murder.**

**She looked across at her husband, where had he been that afternoon, where had he gone she wondered. His affairs, his infidelity, his refusal to share himself with her, had long ago become part of their life together, but she thought now, in his moment of need he would have turned to her, sort mutual affection and comfort, been a normal couple, a loving couple, but no, he had taken off in his car, without her and she'd been left with the acidic April. **

**She hated him, she'd known for some time, long before he'd told her Carolyn was coming to study at Cambridge, and she would be expected to provide a home for a girl, a child she'd never met. She' hated him from the moment he told her she wasn't attractive to him, and he would be looking elsewhere, the moment he'd tangle the fact of her ugliness her own depression in front of her, as the reason he couldn't love her. The moment he'd told her she was better off in this marriage, where he despised her, would not treat her like a woman, like a wife, that she was his purchased and paid for, a slave for his basic needs and nothing more.**

**Now Carolyn was gone, would he even notice if she slunk off, went away and licked her wounds, after ten years of loveless abusive marriage would he even notice if she tok the death of his only child, as an excuse to get away from him. She glared at his pasty miserable form. Sadly he probably would.**


	11. Creeping

**Lucille woke up curled between the soft clean sheets of Sherlock's bed, it wasn't an unusual position to find herself in the last few months, and everytime she awoke there she had a moment of wonder at how comfortable the bed of a boy who didn't sleep actually was. She rolled lightly over and felt his cool thin body beside her, he was sitting upright his back against the head board, his legs stretched out in front of him.**

**"What time is it?" she asked struggling to sit upright, then following his gaze she added "whats wrong?"**

**"Someones out there" he murmured "In the dark, in the square, theres someone creeping about in the dark."**

**"Who?" she asked thickly, peering across the room, and out of the window.**

**"Not sure, a woman, she's creeping about, trying not to be seen, she went into the main building and then after 10mins she's come back out again."**

**"Prozzie?" she asked yawning **

**"No, not long enough, not enough time for an assignation." He told her "this is something else."**

**"To do with the murder? Why, why would she be here?" **

**"Professor Seaman."**

**"That's a bit of a leap isn't it Sherlock?" she pulled her t-shirt down covering her naked legs under the covers against the cold of the room "Someone's creeping in the night, so it must be to do with a murder of a girl from a different college?"**

**"It's not like that" he waved a hand across her "she's skulking, there is something about the way she is skulking."**

**"Would you recognise her again, or do you want to follow her" she asked**

**"Too late now, but I would recognise her if I saw her again." He ran his hand through his hair, "Go back to sleep, I'm sure I wouldn't keep you from that."**

**She put her hand on his arm, "don't rush off without me will you Sherlock? Wake me up before you run off after her?"**

**"Of course" he smirked "I fully intend to fuel the rumour mills by taking you down to formal hall tomorrow morning."**


	12. Trust Issues

**Lucille walked carefully down the cold dormitory corridor, bare wet feet slapping on the wooden floor. She drew Sherlock's thin dressing gown around her naked body, her shower wet hair, soaking through the back of the silk. She groaned as she spotted a far too familiar silhouette in the corridor blocking her retreat to Sherlock's room. **

**"Morning Seb" she greeted the boy, Sebastian Wilkes, who lounged against the wall between his and Sherlock's rooms.**

**"Lucy, sweetheart, what a pleasant surprise early in the morning." He smiled and leant towards her.**

**"Can I get passed Seb, it's cold."**

**"Well, that will have something to do with you being wet and naked" he told her not uncomfortably close "you know you're wasted on him?"**

**She smirked "Really Seb? Is that a proposal?"**

**He reached out and ran a hand down the silk of the robe "let me show you Lucy, I could open your eyes, I could do things to you that…"**

**"That's enough Seb, I'm not interested, I'm really, really not interested." She pushed him away, opening the robe slightly, letting his hand slip into the soft material "Seb, this is not OK, can you let me passed, and stop being a prick."**

**His face changed subtly, as he brought it closer to her, never moving his hand from under the robe, she was suddenly pinned against the wall. "Do you never wonder what it feels like, a real man between those milky little thighs of yours, a real man who would make you scream in the night, who'd rock your thin little body till you walk sideways, I could do that for you, I could do it now, here in this corridor, and he would never know." **

**Just as his hand started moving up across her body towards her breast the door behind him opened wide. Sherlock beamed at them, and Sebastian stepped back as if burnt. Lucille slid towards the open door, as Sherlock stretched his hand out to her, she took it and he pulled her too him, planting a light kiss to the top of her head, he encircled her body with his arms.**

**"Good Morning Sebastian, I thought I heard voices" he smiled widely at the other boy.**

**"Holmes" Sebastian mumbled, and with a final glare at the girl in Sherlock's arms, he stalked off down the corridor.**

**Sherlock stepped backwards into the room, bring Lucille with him, and closed the door.**

**"Are you OK?" he asked her, dropping his arms, and letting her step away.**

**"Yeah" she smiled removing the robe and dropping it in a pool of silk at her feet.**

**He watched her as she started to rummage in his draws for the clean underwear she routinely left there. "I wouldn't have let him hurt you, you know that don't you?"**

**"Yes you would" she told him, laughing and smiling "In fact I'm surprised you didn't stay longer listening behind that door, just to see if he'd really rape me up against it?"**

**He looked at her and smiled, then looked again; still naked she was now searching in his wardrobe for a clean shirt to steal. "Why do you trust me Lu?"**

**"Who says I trust you?" she asked**

**"You're standing, naked, in my bedroom seconds after a run in with a man that left you scared and insecure." He sat on the edge of his desk and watched her, "but you're calm, you're joking, you feel safe with me, why?"**

**"Well you're not going to jump me for one." She smiled, starting to put on her underwear.**

**"Why not?"**

**She looked up at him, and smirked "You have spent much of the last two years, shagging every available male undergraduate, don't tell me you've suddenly gone straight?"**

**"I..I"**

**"I've stumped you?" she walked over and kissed his forehead "I'm not interested in that Sherlock, and you know it, and you respect it, and I trust you to respect it."**

**"Neither am I" he said quietly, 19 years old and suddenly he looked lost, "it's a phase for you, I know it is. One day Daddy will find you a husband and you'll be birthing an heir for the estate within nine months , in fact I predict in ten years' time you'll be married with 2 children in a central London location, to Doctor with another on the way, and what will I be? Where will I be without, without my hag?"**

**"Oh God I know I shouldn't have let you watch Will and Grace, I am not, I refuse to be you're fag hag Sherlock Holmes" she laughed "any way seriously, if you don't like these boys, why do you take them to bed?" she watched him shrug, and fiddle with his cigarette packet, she finished dressing, and di d little spin for him to approve her mismatched clothes, it wouldn't be seemly to go to Formal Hall, under dressed, when she turned to him again he was staring at his lighter. "You know for a genius, sometimes you are a frickin idiot Sherlock."**


	13. Morning Post

**As dawn broke over Cambridge the police finished clearing away the crime scene, and once again traffic started moving on the causeway. The final forensic sweep of the area brought no new information, and so they left the area.**

**Really this information should never have come down to Sidney Sussex, why would a bunch of undergraduates need to know that Cambridgeshire police had hit a dead end, however it was the common topic of discussion the formal hall this morning, much to Sherlock Hole's irritation.**

**"There's something off, they think it was a townie, it wasn't it couldn't have been, why the fen causeway, this is a pre meditated murder, someone targeted her, why did they do that?"**

**"Sherlock" Lucille warned gently, putting her hand on his arm "You're doing that out loud, and people are looking"**

**He continued regardless "Who wanted her dead? The boyfriend, the lover, the mother, she's a weird one, not actually grieving."**

**He continued on regardless, without noticing the uniformed porter who came up behind him, coughed gently and handed a blue envelope to Lucille. She opened it with a butter knife, and read it, all without interrupting his quiet stream of consciousness, until she sighed heavily and dropped her head of the table.**

**"Are you OK?" he asked reacting to the sudden change in her.**

**"I've been asked to play at the funeral."**

**"Whose funeral?"**

**"Carolyn Seaman's"**

**"Why?"**

**"Her father, apparently when one of your students is a concert level pianist, it's suitable to ask them to play at your daughter's funeral."**

**"That's brilliant" Sherlock told her his eyes lighting up**

**"Why?"**

**"The police will be there, the people who knew her well, her family her friends, we can have access to all of them" she kept her head on the table "No, what else is wrong? This isn't because they've asked you?"**

**"I don't understand why they've asked me it doesn't make sense"**

**"Maybe she liked you're playing, maybe she liked your music?"**

**"I doubt it"**

**"Why?"**

**"Because Carolyn Seaman was deaf."**


	14. Seminar

**Lucille sat writing notes and drawing birds at the back of the seminar room, the other students, listened intently to Professor Gullard, while he extolled the importance of the 95th Regiment's position during the battle of Vitoria, she pondered the nature of her relationship with Sherlock Holmes.**

**Friends she would assume, although he would never introduce her as a friend, in fact she wondered if he ever spoke about her to anyone. She didn't tell her Father about him, she knew it would end in embarrassing questions about their relationship, she knew it would start another argument regarding her determination to remain single, not to marry, not to have children. **

**At 19 she knew her own mind, her own body, she wished her father would respect that. For all his pondering at faults, she knew that was what she liked about Sherlock. He didn't see her as a potential lover, sometimes she doubted he saw her as a human being, he saw someone who was faithful, a companion, a servant when the need arose.**

**So intent was she on her doodling and dwelling on her thoughts she didn't notice when Gullard stopped talking, till the room became silent barring a soft bleeping from her bag. Her phone. She reached sheepishly into her back, and stopped the noise, and read the text message.**

_"I need to get into your house, can I have the key?"_

**She looked up and noticed Gullard had started tlking again, and she was being ignored.**

_"u hv a key"_

**She typed quickly, popping the phone onto sient, she slipped it into her pocket, only for it to immeadtely vibrate.**

_"My key is in my room, I need to get into your house now."_

**She glared at the phone, the boy was impossible, lazy and arrogant and impossible.**

_"I'm in a seminar"_

_"I know, I'm outside"_

**She looked behind her at the large window overlooking the yard, pressed against the glass was his face, pulling his goofy I'm a normal person honest, grin. She groaned, dug into her bag for her house key and excused herself from the room.**


End file.
